JunHui Yang

Emilio Ferreiro 14.7.26
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Junhui Yang (also referred to as JunHui Yang) is a Deaf Chinese-British linguist and academic who serves as Senior Lecturer in Deaf Studies in the School of Humanities, Language and Global Studies at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), England. She is a leading international scholar of Chinese Sign Language (CSL) and a specialist in sign linguistics, sign language typology, Deaf community sociolinguistics, bilingualism, and deaf education.

Quick Facts

Early Life and Education

Yang was born in Beijing, China, and attended schools for the deaf there[3]. Before pursuing postgraduate study abroad, she worked for three years as a secondary school literacy teacher of deaf students in Beijing[1][3]. She went on to complete a Master of Science in Postsecondary Education of Students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York, in 2000[1][4], where she studied under Professor Susan Fischer[4]. She subsequently earned a PhD in Deaf Education from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., in 2006, with research focusing on Chinese Sign Language[1][3][4]. During her doctoral training she also spent a year as a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics[1]. Following the completion of her doctorate, she moved to England to join the British Sign Language (BSL) and Deaf Studies team at the University of Central Lancashire, where she has remained since[1][3].

Academic Career

At UCLan, Yang teaches Sign Linguistics, Deaf People in Society, Sign and Society, and British Sign Language modules within the BSL and Deaf Studies programme, and she is course leader for the undergraduate BSL & Deaf Studies degree, including its Education pathway. She supervises postgraduate research projects on sign languages and international Deaf cultural studies, and oversees dissertations at BA, MA, and PhD level. She is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (FHEA), a distinction she received in 2011[1].

Yang has led or participated in a series of internationally funded projects connecting Deaf communities, sign language pedagogy, and cross-border collaboration. These include the Signs2Cross project, a Deaf-led European Union initiative that developed an online course in International Sign; the "Language Skills for EU Mobility" project, which supports the international mobility of deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals; and the Deaf Museum project, an Erasmus+ initiative (2020–2022) that developed open educational resources to provide Deaf sign language users with training in museum and entrepreneurial skills[1][2]. She also received an Erasmus+ Staff Teaching Mobility Grant in 2016 and earlier a British Academy grant in 2010 and a Research Excellence Framework Early Career Researcher grant in 2008[1].
Yang serves as an external examiner at other universities, moderating course content and assessments and examining MA and PhD vivas[1][2]. She is a member of the Association of British Sign Language Teachers and Assessors, Deaf History International, and the British Deaf Association, and she sits on the editorial board of the Sign Language Typology series (De Gruyter Mouton and Ishara Press) and serves as a peer reviewer for the journal Deafness and Education International[1].

Research

Yang's research is centered on Chinese Sign Language: its linguistic structure, regional variation, and the social and educational history of China's Deaf community. She has written on the phonology and morphology of CSL, including its numeral signs and compounding processes[5], and contributed the chapter on Chinese Sign Language to the comparative reference volume Sign Languages of the World: A Comparative Handbook[6]. With Anan Wu, she co-authored An Introduction to Chinese Sign Language and Deaf Culture (Zhengzhou University Press, 2014), a foundational Chinese-language textbook in the field[7]. She has also published on the history and development of Deaf education and bilingual education in China, on Deaf identity, and on Deaf interpreters.

Speaking to the magazine The World of Chinese about the historical development of CSL, Yang explained that the establishment of additional schools for the deaf and Deaf communities across China led multiple local sign language varieties to develop and be transmitted informally from older to younger students, eventually consolidating into the two major regional varieties spoken in China today: a northern variety more strongly influenced by spoken Chinese, and a southern variety that draws more heavily on visually derived signs and facial expression[8].
More recently, Yang has contributed to comparative and evidence-synthesis research bridging sign linguistics and deaf education internationally. In 2024, she co-authored, with Hannah Anglin-Jaffe of the University of Exeter, a systematic review and meta-analysis published in the journal Review of Education examining cross-linguistic correlations between sign language and spoken/written language competence in bilingual Deaf and hard-of-hearing learners — described as the first study of its kind[9].

Public Engagement and Advocacy

Beyond her academic role, Yang serves as a trustee of Deafinitely Theatre, a Deaf-led theatre company based in London[3]. She has also been recognized in public profiles of Asian and Asian American Deaf leaders, including by Rochester Institute of Technology's library guide on Diverse Deaf Leaders and by the platform Hearview, which highlighted her role in shaping Deaf Studies education in the UK and promoting understanding of sign languages and Deaf culture[10][11].

  1. University of Central Lancashire. (n.d.). Dr JunHui Yang [Academic staff profile]. Retrieved June 28, 2026, from https://www.lancashire.ac.uk/academics/junhui-yang
  2. University of Central Lancashire, Central Lancashire Online Knowledge (CLoK). (n.d.). Junhui Yang [Research profile]. Retrieved June 28, 2026, from https://knowledge.lancashire.ac.uk/profile/1765
  3. Deafinitely Theatre. (2022, October 20; updated 2025, January 9). Dr Junhui Yang [Trustee profile]. Retrieved June 28, 2026, from https://www.deafinitelytheatre.co.uk/faqs/dr-junhui-yang
  4. Flickr user 62912707@N00. (n.d.). Dr Junhui Yang's long hair [Photo caption/biographical note]. Retrieved June 28, 2026, from https://www.flickr.com/photos/62912707@N00/2268953809/
  5. Yang, J. (2016). Numeral signs and compounding in Chinese Sign Language (CSL). Semantic Fields in Sign Languages, 2, 253-268.
  6. Yang, J. (2015). Chinese Sign Language. In Sign Languages of the World: A Comparative Handbook (pp. 177–194). De Gruyter.
  7. Yang, J., & Wu, A. (2014). An Introduction to Chinese Sign Language and Deaf Culture. Zhengzhou University Press.
  8. The World of Chinese. (2021, December 17). Chinese sign language users struggle to communicate. Retrieved June 28, 2026, from https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2021/12/signs-of-the-times-why-chinese-sign-language-users-struggle-to-understand-each-other/
  9. Zhang, D., Ke, S., Yang, J., & Anglin‐Jaffe, H. (2024). Sign language in d/deaf students' spoken/written language development: A research synthesis and meta‐analysis of cross‐linguistic correlation coefficients. Review of Education, 12(3), e70016. https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/rev3.70016
  10. Rochester Institute of Technology, NTID Library. (n.d.). Asian/Pacific Islander Deaf leaders [InfoGuide, Diverse Deaf Leaders]. Retrieved June 28, 2026, from https://infoguides.rit.edu/diversedeafleaders/asian
  11. Hearview. (2025, May 15). Leading the way: Stories of Deaf Asian American inspiration. Retrieved June 28, 2026, from https://www.hearview.ai/blogs/news/leading-the-way-stories-of-deaf-asian-american-inspiration
Emilio Ferreiro

Posted by Emilio Ferreiro

E-learning Specialist | PhD student in Health Sciences | Deaf activist | Independent Blogger at Unusualverse

 
       

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